Making a Movement: Stay Awake

Ummm… Day…. 81

Ok. So I took a short 44 day break. No big deal. Let me recap.

In late January, I took a contract for nearly full-time work. I tried to string together daily entries, but if I’m being honest, they would all have sounded the same had I kept writing. It went a little something like this:

“Went to the office. Did some office things. Some important. Some mundane. Grateful for the income from a place that does such great work.”

Rinse. Repeat. So, I stopped writing because mundane makes me want to scream.

I was also sneaking in a little time for developing content forThe Beautifull Project, but not much really. The Project has always been tricky… I adore it. Want to make it all I do. But I haven’t figured out how to monetize it in a way that doesn’t make me feel gross, so it still has to sit off to the side.

And as I worked on the sometimes important/sometimes mundane office things in my work, I was still planning and scheming and scripting next steps toward the ultimate goal of being able to devote myself entirely to the mission and message of the Project.

And then.. .well, you don’t need me to recap this part. If you’re conscious and able to read, you know what happened next. The world flipped upside down. And all of the planning and scheming and scripting could not put it back together again.

So, in between working on crisis communication for some of the contracts I’m still completing (shout-out to those good folks.. INFINITELY grateful for the work,) I found myself with the wind knocked out of me. Kind of apropos considering the reality that COVID-19 has felt like a sucker punch to the gut for most of us.

At first, I thought my stunned silence meant that there were no words to describe what was happening all around me. Given the gravity, I presumed this would be one of those sacred, ineffable events I just can’t capture in text.

But then it hit me… I wasn’t existing in the absence of words. Instead, I was being flooded by them. Everywhere I looked, a story was unfolding in front of me, just waiting to be told. Every empty bread aisle and soft smile from a stranger was begging to be put on a page. It was an ocean of words, churning like the tide… and the problem with the tide is that you can’t ever grab just one drop from it. It washes over you. Or at least it has been washing over me. So, I’ve waited.. Swimming in this word water, waiting for something to soak all the way through my skin.

Until today.

Today I couldn’t contain all of it any longer.

Today, I knew the words had to start to come out of me before I drowned in their density.

But I don’t have a single story yet. I only have a commitment to tell as many of them as I can.

After all, I am a storyteller. It is what I was made to do. And so that’s where we will start. With my commitment to tell the story. Every single day.

And who knows…. maybe that’s what this space was made for all along. I thought I knew what I was doing here - on this blog, in my business, with my family. But none of it makes sense now. The only thing I know is that I am awake enough to write. And writing is what I have to offer.

So, if you’re awake with me, read. If not, rest. I still believe we can find our way through this together.